F O R T U N A T E L Y, he had cut his head on a garage door that morning and chose to wear his helmet
to protect the cut. As things turned out, it protected a GREAT DEAL more than that. MANY other riders
have avoided injuries and had them reduced by wearing helmets. Some, such as this rider and myself,
wore them even when neither one of us normally would have worn one at the time. Having had the
Gath literally smashed, broken and flung off of his head, how do you think his skull would have fared
without the helmet? I likely would have died without a helmet and this fellow would have been severely
injured at best. Other riders have had similar experiences at various
points around the world.

Life and kiteboarding can toss out some serious surprises. Be prepared or no, it's your choice. If you are
looking for a helmet, find the BEST, MOST SUITABLE one that you can for kiteboarding. The helmet shell
should be strong, kevlar is ideal but not widely available, light, well fitting, comfortable, well secured, have
low drag and water retention to reduce "bucketing" potential and be well padded. Ideally the helmet shell
should remain intact despite survivable impacts.

What is your head and critically, your brain worth to you? Obtaining used and possibly compromised,
inexpensive helmets isn't a great idea. Polystyrene lined helmets should be thrown away after serious impacts.
How do you know if the helmet has had such an impact or not? If you need a helmet to deal with a lofting
or dragging impact, you REALLY need it and to perform very well. Get the best kit that you can find, your
brain and continued functioning warrant the best in my opinion and experience.

Last edited by RickI on Fri Aug 01, 2003 3:10 am, edited 6 times in total.

Based upon all the accidents that I hear about and write up in the KSI and the obvious impact potential of kiteboarders against hard objects IF things go wrong, MOST riders would benefit from wearing good helmets.

Read over the original posting. Board leashes have DRIVEN boards through helmets and into skulls. Also, there is NOTHING to say that the board will nicely hit your helmet. One of the two possible board leash related fatalities was wearing a helmet. Apparently the board hit below the helmet line. Then there was the guy in Swan River, OZ, that had his throat cut by a rebounding board fin, and survived. Lots more stories out there, more than I have heard about too.

Wear a helmet to protect against lofting or dragging impacts, they WILL happen to some of us, like it or not. Seriously consider ditching your board leash though. Lots has been written about this hazard already here and elsewhere.

"I get your point but These helmits also do restrict your view and ablility to hear warnings"

I have used helmet for five years in all sorts of conditions with no complaints but let's ignore that for the moment. I interviewed many of the best riders in the world at the Velocity Games a few months ago in Texas, USA. Many riders wore helmet for the first time to compete on the slider and kicker. I spoke with Martin Vari, Andre Phillips, Elliot Leboe, Chuck Patterson, Mauricio Abreu, Julie Gilbert, Dana Pinto, Anke Kirchner, Dimitri M., Hamish MacDonald, on and on ...

I asked all of these people at least one question ...

Did the helmet bother or distract you or impair your ability to perform?

EVERYONE SAID NO .... many said that they forgot that they had it on a few minutes after going out.

Not all helmets cover your ears so the sound issue is an option. Some riders like the ear protection to manage perforation issues. I haven't had that sort of problem myself but it could happen.

Rick,
I have hurt my head impacting the water doing rotations. Don't you think that a helmet would amplify the impact force causing a greater injury?
Most arguments for using a helmet surround people doing something stupid near the beach or a hard object.
What is the rational for a helmet in open water with no obstacles and of course no board leash?

Rick,I have hurt my head impacting the water doing rotations. Don't you think that a helmet would amplify the impact force causing a greater injury?Most arguments for using a helmet surround people doing something stupid near the beach or a hard object. What is the rational for a helmet in open water with no obstacles and of course no board leash?

Reasoning through things, for advanced riders popping higher jumps (greater than 25 to 30 ft.???) and today perhaps messing up high speed kite loops, there is some risk of the added drag presented by helmets in causing neck injuries. If they use a poor helmet for kiteboarding, one with excessive drag, weight or water retention characteristics, the increased risk of neck injury or inflamation, exists in lesser impacts as well. HOPEFULLY, these provisions apply to few riders with the majority being more at risk from impacts against hard objects. I have been slamming in fairly hard to water for years with no apparent ill effects from helmet use. Then again, there are lots of individual factors in such considerations.

Regarding "..."doing something stupid near the beach or a hard object." Often it could be claimed that something "stupid" was done. In other cases, a questionable judgement and in still other cases, "wow, who would have thought that would have happened." Toss in moving boats, bystanders, quick release irregularities, etc. and things start to get real uncertain. Hard objects exist offshore as well, other riders, buoys, boats, etc. Also, it is amazing how much distance can be eaten up in no time with a truely serious emergency. You could be out of control and into the beach before you can effectively defuse things. Lots of surprises possible out there.

A critical point, it seems the majority of serious accident occur during launch, landing and while riders are near shore. Lots of hard objects nearby at these times. The vast majority of us are exposed to these hard object risks, E V E R Y T I M E we ride.

Stuff happens in life and kiteboarding, some misfortune is more foreseeable and avoidable than others. Given the slow spreading of hazard awareness and avoidance ideas for kiteboarding, it is likely there will be more such hard object impacts. Take reasonable precautions or no, it is just another choice. On a particularly bad day, it could be a critical one. Lots of riders are wearing helmets now in various parts of the world, including some PROS, FINALLY! Great riding is getting done, apparently without many complaints about helmet impact. Riders that wear good helmets should stack the deck significantly in their favor should things go wrong. Helmets aren't magic but they can help to reduce injury and even preserve life. Something to carefully think about and act on.

Rick,
thanks for the response.
On a un-related note, in some of your posts the text appears too wide for my screen and forces me to pan back and forth to read it. Sometimes i skip your posts and even your threads because it is too much trouble to do this every line in a long post.
Are you doing something different than typing into the web page. like cutting and pasting from a preformatted word processor that causes this?
In the interest of "getting the word out" and your advocation of safety for the sport, can you fix this problem?

It was apparently the cut and pasted text from kitesurf.org that messed up the page width in this case. I try to avoid this as a rule these days. I just reformated the text, so hopefully you no longer have this problem with this message.

It was apparently the cut and pasted text from kitesurf.org that messed up the page width in this case. I try to avoid this as a rule these days. I just reformated the text, so hopefully you no longer have this problem with this message.

Rick,

Chopping the URL like that breaks the link then the reader can't just click
through - they have to cut and paste it back together.

(Used to be able to use HTML too but now tags like
<a href="www.someurl.com">LINK</a>
don't work anymore on the forum, even with HTML enabled...
otherwise you would just see the word LINK in blue which would try to
link to http://www.someurl.com if you clicked it ... probably a security issue)

Another way, if you don't like BBCODE, is to use http://www.tinyurl.com to
generate a small URL which is instantly redirected to the original URL.

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